Note 72 — Chapter III

In the souvenirs of the Marquise de Créquy the following paragraph occurs:—“My Aunt de la Trémoille was the last of the ancient house of La Fayette, which must not be confounded with that of the philosophic, republican Marquis, who has just been fighting in America. Marie Madeline, heiress and Marquise de la Fayette, Duchesse de la Trémoille and Thouars, died in 1717 at the age of twenty-eight; and it was at this time that a gentleman of Auvergne named Motier took it into his head to adjust the name of La Fayette, which had just become extinct, to the fine name of Motier, which was that of his family. He gave as his reason that several persons of the true house of La Fayette had borne the name of Moztier or Moustier in the seventeenth century.... The Maréchal de Noailles told me that Louis XV. had said to him apropos of the genealogy of this pretended Marquis: ‘Have you read the romance of the Motier family? It will never equal that of Mme. de la Fayette’ (author of ‘La Princesse de Clèves’). We could never understand how the MM. de Noailles could give one of their daughters to that little Motier; but they assured us that he was gentleman enough not to be hanged, very rich, and a very good fellow.”